Hacking WD Greens (and Reds) with WDIDLE3.exe

[vmsio]

Did you happen to try a different computer? If not, fire up an older computer you have stuffed in a closet somewhere. Did the trick for me.

Yes, I have tested it on my newer computer yesterday and it gave the same problem.
I've been mainly testing on my older PC that I have used in the past for wdidle3 as well as yesterday to check my older green drives/blue labeled green. My older drives can be configured in this setup.

I also found a newer version of wdidle3 v2.0.0.1, sounds like this version was given to some users with the WD Red with the LLC issue before the wd5741 tool. I ran this tool on my old 5TB blue/labeled green (mentioned above) and it was able to report my current timer setting, but will give a This drive is unsupported error on my new 6TB blue/labeled green.

I've given up on this drive, I will probably start using it and watch the LLC or use it in a offline backup.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Sonik]

Did you happen to try a different computer? If not, fire up an older computer you have stuffed in a closet somewhere. Did the trick for me.

I wonder if the utility has compatibility issues with some of the newer UEFI BIOS? I ran mine on an old PC with traditional BIOS and didn't have any issues.

Apologies if I'm going off topic.

 

[JiM CAILLOU]

Hi,
First at all, please be tolerant with my school english, I'm from France...
And then,
First at all too :), many thanks for this thread, you might have save one of my HDDs, a WD40EZRX.

So, introducing this post,
I'm not a freenas user, and google drove me in there as I was wondering which disk I could add to my Syno 411 SHR area. I read the entire thread with attention, understood nearly anything.

I have 3 WDEZRX, 1x WD40EZRX and 2x WD30EZRX.
When I started my Syno, years ago, red didn't exist yet, and I went on green ones, at this date wd20EZRX, and I read here and there that green EZRX had their own "wake mode" so that I had NOT to active the Syno wake mode. Without knowing, even having heard of intellipark.
Today, red are in WD range, but green no more. As I read in these pages, replaced with blue EZRZ.
I was wondering about mixing green and EZRZ as I can't find in my country EZRX anymore, unless at an unaffordable price, and/or from US, with the always custom risk (additional fees and delays).
So, looking for imformations, google drove me here.

And first thanks, the comprehensive and perfectly documented technical explanations about intellipark.
I understood that the "new"green EZRZ are of course -now I can say of course- compatible with my EZRX area.
I understood that I should keep in any case my syno with "wake mode" off, as drives live better on H24/7 mode.
I mainly understood that I should enquire about my drives because of Intellipark.

As they are in my Sino, I accessed SMART datas provided by Syno DSM interface, I have at the moment no access to manufacture date neither serial. I'll provide them later, as soon as I'll have time to mount them in a PC running UBCD, considering I need to run WDIDLE in emergency for my WD30EZRX....

So, at the moment, caps of SMART datas :
DISK1 / WD40EZRX

a load_cycle_count value that makes me think : thank you for your thread on the Intellipark !!!!!
As oon as possible, I'll fix the delay with WDIDLE. And report any info that could be useful for anyone here.


DISK3 / WD30EZRX

an interesting load_cycle_count value, compared with start_stop_count, that let me think that on this serie, the intellipark value was by default set to "no" or a large delay ? I'll give all informations here when I'll have WDIDLED the disk.


DISK3 / WD30EZRX

an amazing load_cycle_count value , compared with start_stop_count, how could it be smaller ??????? An error in SMART report ? Expecting that WDIDLE will give me more informations.


Here it is at the moment.
So,
I'd like a confirmation that I should/could ENTIRELY disable the intellipark on my EZRX drives, regarding to my situation : SHR area in a synology NAS (latest DSM).
And I'll report here all infos soon,
And will buy a WD40EZRZ drive, so I should also disable Intellipark ?

THX for your answsers.
:)

EDIT :
Disk3 and disk 4 have a very low load_cycle_count value, it seems normal, as read elesewhere that DSM (syno prop. software for NAS) disabled intellipark fonction since DSM4. OK, first, anyone could confirm ? And secondly, why on disk1 this value of 110924 ???!!!!!!

THX again

 

[John Doe]

Guys I need some advice:

I'm having major external enclosure issues on my new Windows 10 PC. This week one of my Icy Dock enclosures froze while copying data to it and it corrupted 4 drives. I lost tons of data. I have lots of

"Disk X has the same disk identifiers as one or more disks connected to the system."

errors in the event viewer every time I turn on any external enclosure. I had a WD green drive and 3 Seagates in the Icy Dock that got corrupted. I never had an issue with these drives with Windows 7 and external enclosures. I read this on Icy Dock's product page for the enclosure:

"Note: WD Green and WD Red hard drives have a feature called Intellipark. This feature makes the drives automatically park themselves after being idle for 8 seconds. There is a small chance that certain drives may appear offline to the USB host of the MB174U3S-4SB and can cause the USB host to refresh. This could cause the remaining drive(s) to power cycle, interrupting any data transfer and potentially causing data corruption on the drives. We recommend WD Green and WD Red drive users to disable the Intellipark feature to prevent this issue."

I've also read some random blue and/or black drives may have intellipark as well. Again I never had any issue in the past with these drives running in my enclosures. Only in Windows 10 now. Do you guys think I should be blaming the green drive for dropping out the other drives in the enclosure and causing data loss like the product page warns? I still think it's that "Disk X has the same disk identifiers as one or more disks connected to the system." event viewer error that is indicating all my enclosure issues. But I also have an esata card that used to work in my old Windows 7 PC so I'm not sure what's to blame. I'm just trying to figure out what happened to corrupt my data and since Icy Dock has this warning about intellipark I thought I should ask in here. Any ideas?

 

[9C1 Newbee]

Windows 10 PC.

You do understand this is a FreeNAS forum, right?

 

[John Doe]

You do understand this is a FreeNAS forum, right?

Yes, but since people in here seem very familiar with the Green drive issues, I was hoping somebody in here might be knowledgeable enough to help out.

 

[Ali777]

New 4 TB Blue
The WDIDLE3 still works !

 

[Litherz]

I have the WD Blue 2TB 5400RPM (WD20EZRZ) drive for storage and downloading files which came with 8 seconds timer so I changed it to 300 seconds but I'm still getting 60-70 LLC each day, is this normal? If not, should I disable the timer and just use the Windows power options to turn off hard disk after x amount of minutes?

Thanks

 

[joeschmuck]

I have the WD Blue 2TB 5400RPM (WD20EZRZ) drive for storage and downloading files which came with 8 seconds timer so I changed it to 300 seconds but I'm still getting 60-70 LLC each day, is this normal? If not, should I disable the timer and just use the Windows power options to turn off hard disk after x amount of minutes?

Thanks

You could have a maximum of 288 parking events with a 300 second (5 minute) timer setting per day. This is preferable to the default value so I'd leave it alone myself. Please keep in mind what type of drive you have here, you have a drive designed for desktop use with a 2 year warranty, not a NAS drive with a 3 year warranty. Many people have taken the risk and been very satisfied but you need to be smart about how you use the drive.

What are you talking about when you say "Windows power options"? This is FreeNAS not Windows. In either case, do not sleep the hard drive is the best recommendation.

 

[eRacoon]

I have an ESXi server with 10 WD green HDDs running 24/7.
8x 4TB Models (WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0)
2x 2TB Models (WD20EZRX-00DC0B0)
ESXi is installed on a separate SSD.

And I have some really crazy differents in the Load_Cycle_Count value.
I will definetly change the values like explained, thanks for that!

I can't explain why the one drive is going crazy, I have all of these drive into a kind of software raid and all disks should be used nearly the same time.
I added the disks on different dates over the years or swaped them, that is why the power on hours are so different, but the software raid layer was all time the same.

Code:

Model               Power on Hours       Days           Years    Load_Cycle_Count    Start_Stop_Count
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WD20EZRX-00DC0B0        26.966          1.124            3,08       371.235               32
WD20EZRX-00DC0B0        23.367            974            2,67        48.866               37
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0        4.219            176            0,48        33.458               13
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0       19.317            805            2,21        15.750               41
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0       19.329            805            2,21        10.544               41
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0       19.329            805            2,21        10.495               51
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0       19.330            805            2,21         9.934               39
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0        4.206            175            0,48         8.995               14
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0        4.702            196            0,54         5.886               15
WD40EZRX2D00SPEB0        2.993            125            0,34         5.465               18

 

[joeschmuck]

I can't explain why the one drive is going crazy

We have found out that even the same model drive can come with different head parking timer values. I suspect the value on the high count drive has a low timer value. I'd recommend a 300 second value for all your drives.

 

[Tronyx]

FYI, it can be downloaded right from WD again: http://downloads.wdc.com/sata/wdidle3_1_05.zip

 

[thedirtmerchant]

Been running well and clean for about 2 years, but just had some hiccups and ran some checks. I have 2 3-TB Red drives that I bought within 1 month of each other. One has a load cycle count of 633. The other has nearly 1 million.
Is the idle time generally the only thing that would cause this?

 

[elbarhoum]

Hello all !
Thank you for this interesting thread. Can someone please confirm that wdidle3 is still working with recent wd blue disks ? I want to purchase a couple of these disks for a freenas but I need to make sure I'll be able to set the park timer to 300s.
Thanks !

 

[Pitfrr]

Just few days ago I did some WD blue with wdidle3 (to 300s) and it worked. I haven't checked the LCC counter yet but I don't expect any surprises.

 

[elbarhoum]

Just few days ago I did some WD blue with wdidle3 (to 300s) and it worked. I haven't checked the LCC counter yet but I don't expect any surprises.

Thanks for your quick answer Pitfrr !
That's great news ! When were your disks purchased ? And what is the date they were manufactured ?
Best regards,

 

[Pitfrr]

The manufacturing date is December 2016.

 

[elbarhoum]

Hi All !
I bought a WD Blue 3Tb from a local retailer, and it was manufactured September 2015. I'm happy to report that I was able to change the head parking time from 8s to 300s, using idle3-tools from a Linux live cd.

Edit: SMART data is looking good.

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME		  FLAG	 VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE	  UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate	 0x002f   100   253   051	Pre-fail  Always	   -	   0
  3 Spin_Up_Time			0x0027   184   183   021	Pre-fail  Always	   -	   7783
  4 Start_Stop_Count		0x0032   100   100   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   7
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140	Pre-fail  Always	   -	   0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate		 0x002e   100   253   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   0
  9 Power_On_Hours		  0x0032   100   100   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   71
 10 Spin_Retry_Count		0x0032   100   253   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count	   0x0032   100   100   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   6
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   2
193 Load_Cycle_Count		0x0032   200   200   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   47
194 Temperature_Celsius	 0x0022   120   117   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   32
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   253   000	Old_age   Offline	  -	   0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count	0x0032   200   200   000	Old_age   Always	   -	   0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   100   253   000	Old_age   Offline	  -	   0

 

[ethereal]

Hi All !
I bought a WD Blue 3Tb from a local retailer, and it was manufactured September 2015. I'm happy to report that I was able to change the head parking time from 8s to 300s, using idle3-tools from a Linux live cd.

which live cd did you use ? i have two blue drives and cannot get wdidle3 or wd5741 to work with them.

 

[elbarhoum]

which live cd did you use ? i have two blue drives and cannot get wdidle3 or wd5741 to work with them.

I used a lubuntu (as it's lighter than ubuntu) live cd, and installed idle3-tools from the repo. When was your drive manufactured ?